Showing posts with label Retrospective. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Retrospective. Show all posts
Monday, March 14, 2011
Belated
I didn't realize it, but the one year anniversary of this blog's birth (or rather, it's resurrection) passed on March 1st. Not that that will mean anything to anyone other than myself, but milestones -- and, by extension, traditions -- should be important, even the small ones. Reminders of the way we've come.
Saturday, January 01, 2011
Another Step Forward
Happy New Year, everybody!
[On a somewhat lengthy side note -- It's now time to start writing "11" at the end of all your dates. Does anybody else ever wonder which of the years past they've had to write the most amount of dates for? Probably sometime in high school, I figure, when I had to write the date for as many as six periods' worth of homework assignments and notes in the top right corner of every new sheet of paper (assuming I was taking notes or doing my homework. I think I still was for most of those years. Gold star for me). You know what I'm talking about, that little square-ish region at the top of the page where the sheet's not lined yet, bracketed on the right by the end of the page and on the left by the faint imprint of the red margin line from the other side of the sheet (and on another side note, did anybody else hate how a bunch of stores sold 8" by 10 1/2" packs of lined paper instead of the standard 8 1/2" by 11"? Ended up with a bunch of kids running around with inordinately small sheets of paper. I hated that). Anyway, I probably wrote out a lot 01s or 02s in my day (03 and 04 probably got a lot less love, seeing as how senior year very quickly turned into an exercise in doing as little work as possible). I guess college probably gave a few years some pretty good runs, too, but not nearly at the same volume as those early high school years. 09 probably got the least love, seeing as how I wasn't doing anything remotely academic or even resembling writing that year. I'm pretty sure I touched a pen or pencil no more than 50 times that year. I do feel like I wrote "10" a decent amount for various checks, contracts, and assorted business-related paraphernalia this past year, though. Anyway, I probably think about this every year around this time (it usually starts with me wondering how long it'll take to get used to writing the new year's last two digits, then how long it took me to get used to writing the last year's digits, and which digits was I most accustomed to writing, anyway?) and, incredibly stupid as it may be, it's yet another reason why I wish someone would invent a StatTracker for real life already. I need to know these answers! Along with how many beers I've drunken, what my lifetime shooting percentage is, how many gallons of water I've drunken, how many Albertacos burritos I've eaten, what food I've eaten the most, how many miles I've ever walked, how many miles I've ever driven, and a plethora of other assorted, random, and generally unspectacular trivia from my life.]
Well, there's nothing like a good long ramble to get the year started off right. I hope everybody had a good time last night, and that the 364 nights before it weren't too shabby either. 2010 certainly treated me well, occasional warts and all. Somebody asked me recently if I had any regrets about the past year, and the truth is, as differently as a lot of decisions could have gone, I'm happy with the choices I've made. The results may not have always been expected or even desired (a certain late night involving a flooded shower comes to mind), but the stories and experiences that grew out of them have been invaluable. And besides, life is as much about enjoying your successes as it is living with your mistakes. Both help make you, hopefully, into a fuller person. And that's something I won't ever regret. In any case, I've had far more good times than not this year, so I bid 2010 a very fond goodbye.
Here's to another year of putting one foot in front of the other and seeing where that takes us.
[On a somewhat lengthy side note -- It's now time to start writing "11" at the end of all your dates. Does anybody else ever wonder which of the years past they've had to write the most amount of dates for? Probably sometime in high school, I figure, when I had to write the date for as many as six periods' worth of homework assignments and notes in the top right corner of every new sheet of paper (assuming I was taking notes or doing my homework. I think I still was for most of those years. Gold star for me). You know what I'm talking about, that little square-ish region at the top of the page where the sheet's not lined yet, bracketed on the right by the end of the page and on the left by the faint imprint of the red margin line from the other side of the sheet (and on another side note, did anybody else hate how a bunch of stores sold 8" by 10 1/2" packs of lined paper instead of the standard 8 1/2" by 11"? Ended up with a bunch of kids running around with inordinately small sheets of paper. I hated that). Anyway, I probably wrote out a lot 01s or 02s in my day (03 and 04 probably got a lot less love, seeing as how senior year very quickly turned into an exercise in doing as little work as possible). I guess college probably gave a few years some pretty good runs, too, but not nearly at the same volume as those early high school years. 09 probably got the least love, seeing as how I wasn't doing anything remotely academic or even resembling writing that year. I'm pretty sure I touched a pen or pencil no more than 50 times that year. I do feel like I wrote "10" a decent amount for various checks, contracts, and assorted business-related paraphernalia this past year, though. Anyway, I probably think about this every year around this time (it usually starts with me wondering how long it'll take to get used to writing the new year's last two digits, then how long it took me to get used to writing the last year's digits, and which digits was I most accustomed to writing, anyway?) and, incredibly stupid as it may be, it's yet another reason why I wish someone would invent a StatTracker for real life already. I need to know these answers! Along with how many beers I've drunken, what my lifetime shooting percentage is, how many gallons of water I've drunken, how many Albertacos burritos I've eaten, what food I've eaten the most, how many miles I've ever walked, how many miles I've ever driven, and a plethora of other assorted, random, and generally unspectacular trivia from my life.]
Well, there's nothing like a good long ramble to get the year started off right. I hope everybody had a good time last night, and that the 364 nights before it weren't too shabby either. 2010 certainly treated me well, occasional warts and all. Somebody asked me recently if I had any regrets about the past year, and the truth is, as differently as a lot of decisions could have gone, I'm happy with the choices I've made. The results may not have always been expected or even desired (a certain late night involving a flooded shower comes to mind), but the stories and experiences that grew out of them have been invaluable. And besides, life is as much about enjoying your successes as it is living with your mistakes. Both help make you, hopefully, into a fuller person. And that's something I won't ever regret. In any case, I've had far more good times than not this year, so I bid 2010 a very fond goodbye.
Here's to another year of putting one foot in front of the other and seeing where that takes us.
Sunday, August 29, 2010
Happy New Year
A year and a day ago I arrived in New York with an overstuffed van of belongings and no place to put any of it. It's been a hell of a year.
My first couple months here were spent in a hopeless repetition of long days filled with applying for jobs I didn't want and working a random smattering of gigs, usually for little to no pay. I remember the misery of submitting cover letter after cover letter and the anxiety of having no prospects whatsoever on the horizon. Despite it all, I can only recall those months with fondness now. Amidst the interminable hours spent leaching off the wireless and air conditioning from the coffee shop across the street were mild Fall days where, after a morning of combing through the job boards, the bulk of afternoons were devoted to deciding what we wanted to cook for dinner. We were still exploring the mundanities of the city around us -- discovering jogging routes, determining the best grocery store to shop from, figuring out subway and bus routes. The days, unoccupied by any job obligations, stretched long and -- oddly enough -- full of promise. The city could hold anything and it was there for you to find, just around the next corner.
Brooklyn was still a faraway place, set aside like a book we were curious about but didn't have time to crack open yet. Words like "Houston" and "Canal" were suddenly unfamiliar on our tongues, the bridges reaching across the rivers were indiscernible from one another, and every street looked the same. We had signed a year-long lease but had no idea if we could sustain ourselves here for that long. Everything seemed nebulous and uncertain, except for the conviction that this was a place I needed to find a way to stay in, otherwise I would regret it for the rest of my life.
And now it's a year later. Work has been comfortably steady for the past 8 or 9 months, while still allowing me enough time to pursue side projects or take trips to new cities. My idea of New York has gradually expanded far beyond the confines of Lower Manhattan to include places like Long Island and New Jersey. There's a strong familiarity with the structure and layout of the city now, allowing you time to notice quainter things like the ubiquity of scaffolding or how my boogers are a lot gnarlier here than they were in Los Angeles. Idiosyncrasies abound, and you learn to do things anew. Eat, drink, walk, drive, freeze, sweat, go to the library, shop at the grocery store -- you learn to do all of it over again. And in the process you really, truly fall in love with a city.
This has been a year of change, to put it laughably mildly. A year ago I was listening to "Empire State of Mind" pounding out of car windows while wondering how the hell I was going to pay my rent; today I'm heading over to Jay-Z's midtown offices to work on background visuals for his concert with Eminem (oh yeah, brief update on the company -- it would seem Possible Productions is on the cusp of some big things). A year ago I didn't know where to get anything I needed; today I have books lining my shelves and a refrigerator full of food. A year ago the apartment was freshly painted and scrubbed down; today the walls have yellowed just the slightest and a layer of dust has settled comfortably over the floor beneath my bed and all of the other spaces we've come to not use.
A year ago New York was a challenge; today it's home.
Anyway, here's a grab bag of moments from this past year.
My first couple months here were spent in a hopeless repetition of long days filled with applying for jobs I didn't want and working a random smattering of gigs, usually for little to no pay. I remember the misery of submitting cover letter after cover letter and the anxiety of having no prospects whatsoever on the horizon. Despite it all, I can only recall those months with fondness now. Amidst the interminable hours spent leaching off the wireless and air conditioning from the coffee shop across the street were mild Fall days where, after a morning of combing through the job boards, the bulk of afternoons were devoted to deciding what we wanted to cook for dinner. We were still exploring the mundanities of the city around us -- discovering jogging routes, determining the best grocery store to shop from, figuring out subway and bus routes. The days, unoccupied by any job obligations, stretched long and -- oddly enough -- full of promise. The city could hold anything and it was there for you to find, just around the next corner.
Brooklyn was still a faraway place, set aside like a book we were curious about but didn't have time to crack open yet. Words like "Houston" and "Canal" were suddenly unfamiliar on our tongues, the bridges reaching across the rivers were indiscernible from one another, and every street looked the same. We had signed a year-long lease but had no idea if we could sustain ourselves here for that long. Everything seemed nebulous and uncertain, except for the conviction that this was a place I needed to find a way to stay in, otherwise I would regret it for the rest of my life.
And now it's a year later. Work has been comfortably steady for the past 8 or 9 months, while still allowing me enough time to pursue side projects or take trips to new cities. My idea of New York has gradually expanded far beyond the confines of Lower Manhattan to include places like Long Island and New Jersey. There's a strong familiarity with the structure and layout of the city now, allowing you time to notice quainter things like the ubiquity of scaffolding or how my boogers are a lot gnarlier here than they were in Los Angeles. Idiosyncrasies abound, and you learn to do things anew. Eat, drink, walk, drive, freeze, sweat, go to the library, shop at the grocery store -- you learn to do all of it over again. And in the process you really, truly fall in love with a city.
This has been a year of change, to put it laughably mildly. A year ago I was listening to "Empire State of Mind" pounding out of car windows while wondering how the hell I was going to pay my rent; today I'm heading over to Jay-Z's midtown offices to work on background visuals for his concert with Eminem (oh yeah, brief update on the company -- it would seem Possible Productions is on the cusp of some big things). A year ago I didn't know where to get anything I needed; today I have books lining my shelves and a refrigerator full of food. A year ago the apartment was freshly painted and scrubbed down; today the walls have yellowed just the slightest and a layer of dust has settled comfortably over the floor beneath my bed and all of the other spaces we've come to not use.
A year ago New York was a challenge; today it's home.
Anyway, here's a grab bag of moments from this past year.
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